The difficulties associated with the disposal of used tires are well known. Tires have a large bulk in relation to their mass and for this reason they occupy a very large bulk when they are being transported to a disposal site.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,955,491 to McMahon, dated May 11, 1976, discloses an automobile tire stacking and strapping machine which is designed to be used in a tire manufacturing plant. It is a highly sophisticated and complex piece of machinery which includes a lift cylinder mechanism which operates to permit tires to be added to the bottom of the stack of tires in order to accumulate the stack. After the last tire has been introduced into the stack at the bottom thereof, the entire tire clamping carriage is caused to shift bodily rearwardly toward the strapping station. The mechanism required for this purpose is complex and expensive and, as a result, this equipment is only suitable for use in a tire manufacturing plant.
There are a substantial number of installations where a tire baler can be used to advantage in the disposal of used tires. For example, there is a need for an inexpensive tire baler which can easily be transported to a retail outlet which sells new tires which is required to store used tires for shipment to a tire disposal site. The mechanism of U.S. Pat. No. 3,955,491 is so complex as to be unsuitable for this type of tire disposal operation.
A further machine for compressing, slitting and baling stacks of tires is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,006,687. In order to maintain tire alignment in this mechanism, a centering spool is used to centre the tire and a guy rod extends upwardly through the centre openings of the tires to maintain vertical alignment of the stack. The guy rod and centering spool are substantially smaller than the wheel opening in the tires, and consequently they do not offer a good support for alignment purposes.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,095,560 Laurie et al. also discloses a baler for baling used tires. However, again, this structure does not overcome the difficulty of maintaining alignment in the tires during the tire stacking operation.
I have found that I can provide an inexpensive tire baler which has a simple and efficient tire alignment mechanism for maintaining the tires in alignment during the initial stacking of the tires within the tire compression chamber.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a simple and inexpensive tire baler which has a simple and inexpensive mechanism which serves to maintain alignment of the tires during the initial stacking of the tires in the tire compression chamber.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a tire baler in which the tire alignment mechanism is in the form of tire alignment walls yieldably mounted in a tire alignment chamber so as to be movable between an inner position supporting the uncompressed stack of tires in alignment and an outer position which permits the tires to expand radially outwardly during compression.